American Tea Room

Dessert-y teas are always tricky. Are the flavors really coming through, are they balanced, does it taste like the dessert it’s supposed to be like. Wellll, as a matter of fact, this meets my requirements. It’s always a mystery as to how they make some of the flavors like bread. Someone told me it’s magic. Hey, I can go with that. :-D I did a resteep, still good. Made some iced tea out of some that had been sitting in the pot for a while. Very yummy!

Yummy! The aroma is intoxicating! It smells so much like the brioche I remember from the pastry shop near where i used to work. The taste fulfills the promise given in the aroma. For me, the beginning of the sip has the strongest of the brioche taste. If I drink again right away it seems to be less prevalent but if I wait between sips the taste is right back where it should be. I’m probably am just imagining it. Very tasty cup of tea. I am definitely going to put this on my wish list.

I got a sample of this one for free with my recent order of the original Brioche. I’m not going to rate this because I generally do not like this type of herbal, where it’s just a bunch of “flavorings” added to some chunks of nuts and or dried fruit that do not apart any flavoring of their own. (A la David’s Forever Nuts) Slap this flavoring onto some high quality decaf black tea, and we’ll talk ;)

Got this as a sample in my ATR order. Not bad, not spectacular. It smells delicious dry as the fruit hits you. To taste, it’s sweet and has a bit of tartness that doesn’t quite come through, which is fine for me because I’m not fond of tart teas. The fruit flavor doesn’t come across as strongly to taste as it did to smell. Not getting a lot of “tea” taste but rather sweet/fruity with a delicate ghost of a vegetal note.

Having this again out of my sample. First steep was 2.5min, 1 tsp to 16oz 175F water. Definitely a more mineral taste. Second steep was 3min. Sweeter, less mineral, but I’m just absent-mindedly sipping it and not getting any “ooh this is nice tea” feelings. Glad I only ordered a sample. I also don’t get any creamy/milkiness in the sip.

I guess I’m just not a big oolong person. This is nice enough, but didn’t wow me. I didn’t really get the milky aspect, though there are definite notes of sweetness and a floral aspect that I attribute to the Tie Guan Yin base. The second steep was much more flavorful than the first. But at $39 for 2oz, I’m glad I only got the sample. I’d rather spend the same amount on matcha.

A nice light green. I put 1.5tsp in with ~8oz of 175F water. The liquid is light yellow-green, and in my opinion tasted the best while very warm. The peach notes are there but delicate, and I wonder if a touch of rock sugar might bring them out more. When the cup was warm there was no bitterness or astringency, and only a mild vegetal taste. Not what I expected based on my past experiences with sencha having a more briny/seaweed taste. As the cup cooled to lukewarm there was a more pronounced astringent quality.

I remember having some of Den’s Teas flavored senchas in the past and found them more pleasing, so for the price I probably wouldn’t recommend this over them.

The lemon is subtle, not overpowering, yet still manages to take center stage and is backed up by the smooth, creamy hints of vanilla and the occasional spicy bite from the lemongrass. This tea strikes me as a dessert tea, something to enjoy just after dinner when you’re looking for something sweet, but over time I’ve started to enjoy it all day long. Since it is caffeine free it’s the perfect choice when you’re ready to settle down and want something soothing before bedtime. It also makes a refreshing iced tea, I like to make a pot at night and stick the leftovers in the fridge to enjoy over ice in the morning.

You can read the full review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2014/4/1/tuesday-tea-lemoncello-organic-american-tea-room.html

I received this as a sample with an order. I did some reorganizing of my teas last night, and I decided to try to sipdown the teas which I have 3 servings or less of. There was just enough in this sample to make a small pot of tea. This was enjoyable, but not my favorite. This is a very subtly flavored Earl Grey Creme with a bit of violet. The violet threw me at first, because sometimes bergamot can smell floral to me, but this smelled like there had to be something else in it besides the bergamot and vanilla. Florals can be difficult to detect for me when there’s citrus too. I wonder if anyone else has that issue.

Backlog from last night. I kind of got this one because I wanted to reach some free shipping treshold, I think, so it wasn’t something I would really normally pick. It’s a nice, refreshing tea with a mild base and tropical flavors. Pretty tasty, with just the right amount of sweetness to it.

Not particularly complex or interesting, it is great for just sipping when it’s later in the evening, while you’re busy with something that doesn’t let you savor your tea. I am also sure that it is great iced but since I don’t care about iced tea, it’s not an option for me.

I am glad to have it but I probably won’t be buying it again.

It seems like I haven’t reviewed this tea yet even though I’ve had it a bunch of times already. It’s probably because I usually have it late at night when my laptop is switched off and I am definitely NOT writing anything longer than a sentence on my stupid tablet.

Anyway, I really love this one. It mostly consists of cocoa husks, but there’s also rooibos, just enough to give the whole thing an extra dimension. I had it with or without almond milk and it tastes great either way – just like cocoa, the real one, not the overtly sweet one. Perfect drink for late nights, especially if they are colder – which makes me think I should have gotten it earlier, it would have helped me survive this last winter (AKA This Last Winter).

I guess I survived it anyway. And next weekend is supposed to be pretty warm… YAY!

Sipdown!! (172)

Thank you NayLynn for the chance to try this tea. It is a really unique tea. I actually quite enjoy it for its one-of-a-kind flavor. Dates contribute a sweetness while the figs contribute a nice fruitiness. There is also a nuttiness that makes for a full flavor while sesame rounds everything out nicely. It is a great treat every now and again but I don’t think I would reach for it often enough to justify stocking it. I wouldn’t turn down a cup though :)

This is an interesting cup of tea for sure. It is fruity but unlike any other fruity tea I had before. The sesame is also present. Very unique and certainly worth a try. I doubt I would stock this but I am so glad to have another cup to really wrap my head around this blend. Thank you NayLynn for sharing this with me.

This is delicious. Not the right answer for someone looking for a flavored or fruity tea, the description is correct about the ‘classic umami’ flavors of the green tea itself, which is wonderful, and the plum blossom adds only a very delicate rounding of the flavor, a lightly discernible sweet complement to the tea itself. The floral aspect is quite a bit less obvious than in, say, a jasmine green (at least those I’ve tasted). I think this has unexpectedly found a spot in the permanent collection.

I have very bad luck with flavored oolongs. And by bad luck I mean I don’t like them ever. So I continued torturing myself with this peach. It sounded good. The dry leaf smelled terrific. And I love ATR’s Immortal Green (peach green). But this didn’t do it for me. It tasted like a light peach herbal tea to me. Time to stop barking up this tree, as soon as I try their coconut oolong I also ordered.

This steep is different from the first but just as good. It’s more vegetal, almost like a green, and the mineral notes are stronger, but there’s a slight milky sweetness at the end that was present in the first cup. So far it really resteeps well.

My first milk oolong! This is so complex and interesting. It’s definitely a green oolong, but it also tastes, well, milky. The mouthfeel is creamy and there are also some mineral notes. I wouldn’t say it’s fruity but it is kind of juicy. Sadly I only have one cup’s worth of this, but I’ll be resteeping it a few times to see what happens. Yum!

This came with my order of Brioche and I was excited to see that they offer a decaf version. Like others have mentioned, this is identical to Forever Nuts! I love the taste of Forever Nuts so really enjoyed this and will definitely add it to my next order.